


Don't Stand So Close To Me

by juniperScholar



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, Blow Jobs, F/M, Hand Jobs, Teacher-Student Relationship, Vaginal Sex, anyway i'm trash don't @ me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2019-10-14 02:28:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 8,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17499845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juniperScholar/pseuds/juniperScholar
Summary: Julian Devorak is a high school teacher with a problem. One of his students clearly has a crush on him, and he can't deny any longer that he reciprocates her feelings. (At no point in this fic are there explicit underage relationships.)





	1. Teen Idle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adolescence didn’t make sense/A little loss of innocence/The ugliness of being a fool/Ain’t youth meant to be beautiful?

Anya thanked her lucky stars that her senior year schedule put her in Mr. Devorak’s class the period just before lunch. 

She knew she would be able to stay after class to talk with him without the urgency of getting to her next class on time. 

She had first noticed him the year before, the year he started teaching at her school – his tall figure, his rich auburn hair, his button-down shirts that were just a tad too tight around the biceps. 

But she had only been 16 for the majority of her junior year, and she knew she didn’t stand a chance. 

In fact, she didn’t really think she stood a chance now, but as her best friend at summer camp had pointed out, she had nothing to lose. 

 

She spent the first semester gauging his interest. 

Inflecting her voice just ever so slightly into flirtatious territory – not so much that he might catch on right away and immediately reject her, but enough to give him pause. 

It seemed to be working. 

After several months of her gaze lingering just a moment longer than normal on him, leaning over just an inch farther when she knew he was looking, Anya had to admit that Mr. Devorak seemed more flustered than usual. 

She was still wary about trying anything too overt, but she knew she needed a new strategy if she wanted this crush to turn into something more.

 

Anya had had plenty of crushes on teachers before. 

She attributed her slightly unsavory preference to a combination of her infatuation with intellectualism and her slight fear of authority that she realized must have switched signals with sexual attraction somewhere along the line. 

Having moved around frequently growing up, she had attended new schools nearly every year, and every year she found the one hot teacher that she could pine over hopelessly in her free time. 

 

Her drive to act on her crush this year was a new phenomenon, however. 

She had always been acutely aware of the age difference, for one. 

As a fourteen-year-old, she made no pretense about the objectionability of a relationship between her and an adult man. 

Up until now, her crushes had been unavailable in their own ways as well. 

Most were married. 

One was gay. 

Anya had no desire to be a homewrecker. 

But then she met Mr. Devorak, and she realized that this situation was different. 

 

Mr. Devorak was decidedly single. 

In his late twenties, he was not scandalously older than Anya, especially since she would be turning 18 at the end of the year. 

Serendipitously, Anya was spending two consecutive years at the same school, only the third time that had happened during her education. 

And on top of everything else, Anya thought that maybe, just maybe, Mr. Devorak was interested in her as well. 

 

Over Christmas break, Anya had consulted with Lucio, her friend from summer camp. 

While Anya had spent most nights at camp slathering calamine lotion on her upsettingly high number of mosquito bites, Lucio had been busy texting several boys at once, all of them wrapped around his finger. 

Lucio’s opinion was that Anya would get nowhere with an older, more experienced man like Mr. Devorak without knowing her way around a dick or two. 

Considering Lucio’s successful courtship of not one but two college guys, Anya was ready to take his word as gospel. 

She would need to practice.

 

Despite her (admittedly true) reputation at the school of being a withdrawn bookworm, it only took one well-timed blow job behind the bleachers to earn her a new reputation, along with plenty of willing test subjects. 

The combination of high school boys desperate to lose their virginity before college and a divorced father who spent most of his time out of state on business trips afforded Anya plenty of opportunities to make sure that she would not disappoint when she finally made a formal proposition to Mr. Devorak.

 

When she paused to think about it, however, she couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about. 

With most of the boys she experimented with, it was over before it even really began. 

She certainly wasn’t getting any pleasure out of it. 

She had decided to limit herself to hand jobs and blow jobs, retaining a certain sense of shame about penetrative sex despite Lucio’s admonitions that it was no big deal. 

Although she knew that more practice would be pragmatic, Anya couldn’t shake the feeling that Mr. Devorak would be put off by a girl who had been around the block more than a few times. 

So she continued on course with her experimentation during the spring semester, growing ever more daring both inside and outside of school. 

She was determined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title and lyrics of course from the iconic Marina and the Diamonds song.


	2. The Look

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Na na na na na, na na na na na, na na na na na na na, na na na na na, na na na na na na na na  
> She’s got the look

If he was being honest with himself, he knew there was something compelling about her from the beginning, even before, when her interactions with him in class rarely escalated beyond her wide-eyed nods of acknowledgement or quiet admissions of “Excuse me, Mr. Devorak, can I ask you a question?” 

Julian had to admit that he found himself drawn to her – the ribbon she always tied in her copper hair, the inquisitive light in her green eyes, the perfectly proportioned curvature of her hourglass figure… 

But it had been easy to write off these thoughts as harmless intrusions, nothing worth dwelling on and certainly nothing worth worrying about. 

 

At the beginning of this school year, however, Julian began to notice a change. 

Although Anya still generally kept to herself, she would occasionally exhibit behavior bordering on flirtatious, as if gaging Julian’s responsiveness. 

He tried to tell himself that he kept his manner professional, but he knew that he occasionally slipped up. 

“Banter” was one of the forms of communication frowned upon in the teacher guidelines, but Julian often found himself genuinely charmed by Anya’s wit, and more than once he responded in kind, wanting the conversation to continue.

 

Then there was the one morning during the first month of classes when she had asked him a question about an assignment, leaning perhaps slightly lower than necessary over his desk. 

He had had to use all his self-control to avert his eyes from the devastating picture of her gently curving breasts revealed by her button-down shirt. 

He brushed it off as an oversight on her part, that she didn’t realize how much she was revealing by leaning over so far. 

But he could never quite shake the feeling that she had deliberately flashed him a sultry glance before straightening and walking back to her desk.

 

Then the spring semester started, and it got worse. 

He knew it had to be his imagination, but it seemed that she had switched out her uniform skirt for one an inch shorter. 

She lingered at his desk after asking questions about the material – knowing full well that she had a lunch period next and nowhere to be for another hour – sharing short anecdotes about her day or complimenting his choice of tie. 

She all but forced him to notice her musky amber perfume, so much subtler and more refined than the fruity scents the other girls were accustomed to wearing.

 

On one unseasonably warm day in February, she wore thigh-high socks with her uniform instead of the standard issue tights. 

Her demeanor had been especially coy that day, and Julian, for the first time, was unable to ascribe her behavior to anything approximating innocence. 

That entire day, Julian cursed whoever had decided that thigh-high socks were “school appropriate.” 

They absolutely were not. 

Feeling the weight of all his frustration from the previous months that he could no longer ignore, he jerked himself off that night to the image of Anya’s milky thighs and how it would feel to run his fingers from the tops of her socks up, up, up…

 

And that was when Julian knew he was fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously y'all, The Look by Roxette is a banger.


	3. What You Know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can tell just what you want/You don’t want to be alone/You don’t want to be alone/I can’t say it’s what you know/But you’ve known it the whole time/Yeah you’ve known it the whole time

It was around that time that the other teachers started to notice as well. 

The teachers’ lounge had always been a space he knew he could be safe from Anya’s all-too-tempting form, but now she had invaded that haven as well. 

Mr. Valerius, the school’s vice principal and head gossip, started to share little tidbits about Anya that he overheard from the students _…she sure kept herself busy over break…I heard some boys on the basketball team say they’ve been drawing straws to see who gets to go behind the bleachers with her next…doesn’t seem too concerned with the kind of reputation she’s getting…_

Mr. Valerius’s rumormongering had gotten so bad that Julian had started avoiding the teachers’ lounge altogether, preferring to stay holed up in his own room.

It wasn’t that he was jealous per se, thinking about those high school boys who obviously didn’t appreciate who Anya was, what she was giving to them – it surely wasn’t that observation that made him cringe when he heard the gossip in the teachers’ lounge. 

_She’s more delicate than she lets on, and eventually one of these boys is going to hurt her. I’m just worried about her well-being._

He had to reassure himself often.

 

One day in April, during one of these reveries in his classroom, Julian heard a knock on his door. 

Feeling guilty about where his mind would have strayed if left alone much longer, he looked up to see Anya slowly pushing open the heavy door. 

 

“Mr. Devorak, I had a question about yesterday’s test, do you mind if I come in?” she asked, for all he knew completely unaware of the devastating affect her presence had on him at that particular moment. 

 

“Uh, sure…” he replied absent-mindedly, trying to remember what he should have been working on when she came in that he should now look like he was putting away.

 

She entered the room fully now, her silhouette framed by the light coming in through the half-closed blinds. 

Julian had turned off the lights in the room that afternoon since the sun had been bright enough to keep the room lit, but the fading light outside meant his room was now mostly dark. 

Anya made no move to turn on the lights, walking softly up to Julian’s desk. 

She took the graded test out of her backpack that Julian had handed back the day before – her first grade in the class below an A.

 

Anya proceeded to ask a question about something she had gotten wrong, a mistake Julian wouldn’t have expected her to make. 

 

“You don’t remember going over this? We had a whole homework assignment just for this concept,” he noted. 

To Julian’s surprise, Anya looked slightly embarrassed.

 

“I think I was busy that night, I didn’t have time to look over it very closely.”

 

“You know, I’ve noticed that your grades have dropped this semester. Maybe you should go back to using your time for studying,” Julian quipped before thinking, the slightest hint of venom in his voice that he hoped didn’t reveal the jealousy behind his words. 

As soon as he said it, he regretted it. 

He should have answered her question and ushered her out the door. 

As much as he tried to deny it to himself, he knew it was dangerous for him to be alone with her. 

Immediately he stood up, hoping he could perform some damage control and get her out of the room before things got any worse.

 

“What does that mean?” Anya asked, her voice cautious but with a definite note of incredulity.

 

_Fuck_ , Julian thought. 

He shut his laptop and pinched his nose between his fingers, trying to come up with something to say that would sound reasonably appropriate.

 

“I…I just mean that it shows in the quality of your work when you take the time to study. If you’re having problems with the material, I’m sure you’ll get it if take a little extra time to work on it…” Julian trailed off, trying to sound like any teacher concerned about a student’s grades, but knowing his performance was falling flat. 

 

“I don’t think that’s what you meant,” she said, her voice more confident now, even accusatory. 

She walked the few steps around Julian’s desk to close the space between them. 

Julian might still have been able to save the conversation had she not looked him straight in the eyes. 

When she did, Julian realized that Anya was not continuing this conversation as some sort of flirtatious ruse – she looked at him with an expression of genuine hurt and anger. 

He had wounded her, and now there was nothing left to do but be honest. 

Julian sighed.

 

“Listen, Anya, this is a small school. People talk. I know why you haven’t been studying. All I’m saying is that if you want to improve your grades, maybe you should…drop some extracurriculars to make more time for schoolwork.” 

Julian answered her question earnestly, but he still couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable. 

_Just because I got myself into this conversation like an idiot doesn’t mean I’m not going to dance around its actual subject_ , he thought.

 

There was a long pause before Anya replied. When she did, she was so quiet that Julian barely heard her. 

 

“I don’t even like any of the guys. I’m just doing it for the practice.”

 

Julian was so taken aback by Anya’s answer that he couldn’t stop himself from blurting out his first thought.

 

“For practice!? Practice for what!?” 

 

Anya’s demeanor had shifted from indignant to melancholy, and as she lifted her eyes to him again, he couldn’t help but think she looked like a deer in the headlights. 

 

“Actually, don’t answer that,” Julian said immediately, afraid to hear what she might say. 

“Anya, I don’t know what exactly is going on in your life right now, but trust me, when you find someone who truly cares about you, he won’t care about how much “practice” you’ve had, okay? 

If that’s your only reason for this…change in study habits, you should forget it and just go back to your old routine.” 

 

Julian raised his arm to put a hand on Anya’s check, looking into her obscenely round eyes and wishing that he could make them bright and cheery again. 

He almost touched her face before realizing what he was doing, suddenly stopping himself and turning away from Anya back to his chair. 

Julian could hear Anya move back to the front of his desk and grab her backpack. 

With his eyes closed, he listened, waiting to hear when the door would click open and she would leave, but instead he heard Anya ask one more quiet question.

 

“Would you care?”

 

Julian opened his eyes and spun around to face Anya again. 

She looked absolutely innocent, as if she hadn’t just shattered his world with three words. 

He cleared his throat.

 

“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” Julian answered as calmly as possible, but Anya was unwavering.

 

“But would you?” she asked again, her voice this time almost breathy, and Julian knew he needed to get her out of his room immediately. 

So he told the truth.

 

“No, I wouldn’t.”

Anya lingered a moment, looking at Julian with an inscrutable expression. And then, mercifully, she turned around and left his room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are starting to get juicy friends, so stay tuned!


	4. Age of Consent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Won’t you please let me go?/These words lie inside, they hurt me so/I’m not the kind that likes to tell you/Just what I want to do

Anya closed the door of Mr. Devorak’s room and leaned against it, trying to make sense of what had just happened. 

She hadn’t had any flirtatious machinations planned for that day – she truly did want to ask about her test – so the slightly soul-bearing conversation she had just had with Mr. Devorak had caught her off guard. 

 

This was the first time anyone had confronted her about her deviant behavior. 

Lucio, of course, was eagerly egging her on. 

God knows her absentee father had no clue what was going on in her life, and she hadn’t been in contact with her mother for years. 

She didn’t have any close friends at this school, and although she heard the rumors going around, she didn’t much care what the other students thought. 

But she hadn’t considered that the rumors might cross the student-teacher boundary and find their way to Mr. Devorak. 

 

Anya had been completely surprised by Mr. Devorak’s observation – rather, his accusation – that she was sleeping around. 

It meant he had found out about the information somehow and cared enough to remember it. 

_A pleasant thought, in some ways_ , Anya mused. 

But no, she wasn’t in a position to feel bemused about their conversation yet, as she knew she had revealed too much. 

 

Almost involuntarily she had told him that she was only practicing, and then, even more foolishly, she had made herself weak and vulnerable by asking whether Mr. Devorak cared how much experience she may or may not have. 

Yes, Anya decided, this conversation had put her in an unfavorable spot. 

She hadn’t been ready yet to expose her feelings for Mr. Devorak, but now she had all but done so. 

Her only choice now was to plan her endgame.

 

The rest of April passed uneventfully for Anya. 

Partially out of shame and partially because she had it on good authority that it didn’t actually matter, Anya stopped sucking guys off after school and focused on her studies again. 

She was cordial to Mr. Devorak in class but avoided being caught alone with him. 

Lucio had assured her that at this point, it was imperative that she lure him into a false sense of complacency. 

She did notice that Mr. Devorak seemed more uncomfortable around her than he ever had been before, although he hid it decently well. 

Both parties seemed content for the moment to try to forget their improprietous conversation and pretend that they were just a student and a teacher with a normal, completely appropriate relationship. 

 

Of course, Anya was only biding her time, trying to sustain the status quo as she waited for her birthday to come around in the beginning of May. 

Once she turned 18, the game would change completely. 

She had already been accepted to several colleges and had submitted her matriculation decisions. 

Her classes were coming to a close and she only had a few assignments and exams left to worry about. 

At the end of the first week of May, Anya was ready to set in motion the plan she and Lucio had come up with – a simple yet elegant ruse that would hopefully allow Anya to catch Mr. Devorak off guard, and more importantly, off campus, so that she could finally make her intentions clear. 

 

So on Friday, Anya kept a low profile at the end of the school day, skillfully enough that she was able to follow Mr. Devorak onto the commuter train. 

Anya casually unwrapped a lollipop, stuck it in her mouth, and positioned herself in the sightline of Mr. Devorak. 

Now she waited patiently for him to look in her direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title and lyrics brought to you by my favorite song by New Order.


	5. The Tenure Itch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> His indiscretions, oh you don’t mind/He says your thoughts need form but your form’s not hard to find...He makes corrections, you shut the blinds/You’re talking less and less but the words aren’t hard to find

Julian studied the other passengers on the train car absentmindedly while he considered the last week. 

He thought he was beginning to make some progress with a particularly rowdy student in his biology class and wondered how he could continue to keep him pacified.

Julian thought about the exams of his anatomy class in his bag and resigned himself to an uneventful weekend of grading. 

It was not long, however, until his thoughts traced a line from his anatomy class to thoughts of Anya.

 

He had done his best that week to avoid her, not sure what he would do or say if left alone with her again. 

Their last conversation had left him reeling, frustrated at his own impropriety and baffled by Anya’s behavior. 

He was a young, attractive teacher who had dealt with student crushes before, but never one that he could no longer deny he reciprocated. 

Thankfully the school year was almost over, and he could spend the summer getting drunk and fucking strangers to forget about Anya.

 

The motion of the train jerking to a stop pulled Julian out of his own memory. 

He glanced at the sign on the platform outside. 

One more stop until he could retreat to his apartment for the weekend, safe from any unsuspected encounters with Anya that might tempt him beyond what he could endure. 

As he turned his head back to the train interior, he felt his breath hitch momentarily as he realized that Anya was there, only a few yards away from him, slowly pulling a red lollipop away from her slightly parted lips. 

\-------------------------

He had seen her. 

Anya caught the brief flash of – what was that? fear? longing? – in his eyes before Mr. Devorak composed his face into its usual inscrutable stare. 

It was all she needed. 

Anya knew that even such a seemingly insignificant break in his composure meant she had little chance of failure. 

She smiled at Mr. Devorak when he met her gaze and casually closed the distance between them. 

_There’s nothing wrong with a student saying hello to her teacher on the train home from school, right?_ she asked herself, psyching herself up to carry out what she had been planning for months. 

 

“Hi Mr. Devorak,” Anya said, her voice cheery and amiable so as not to arouse suspicion from any nearby passengers. 

At the same time, she expertly gave him the briefest look of mischief, making sure he knew exactly what her motive was. 

She moved her lollipop back to her lips and pushed it into her mouth again.

 

“Hello, Anya,” Julian said coolly. 

“You know, you really shouldn’t be eating anything on the train. It’s on the sign.” 

It was difficult to tell if his comment was meant as a joke about the all but meaningless rules regarding eating and drinking on the train or as an attempt to keep the conversation as banal as possible, but Anya didn’t much care. 

He couldn’t have provided her with a better cue. 

She moved slightly closer to him.

 

“Oh, you’re right. I guess I wasn’t thinking.” 

Anya gave her pleasantly conversational answer at normal volume before lowering her voice and speaking in a raw tone that only her teacher could hear. 

“I’ll tell you what, Mr. Devorak, I’ll get rid of my lollipop if you give me something else to suck on.” 

A little heavy-handed perhaps, she had to admit, but the brief look of wide-eyed surprise on Julian’s face before he erupted into a sudden coughing fit was too satisfying to feel that embarrassed about it. 

\-------------------------

Julian momentarily panicked. 

Nothing in his previous years of teaching experience had prepared him for how to react when one of your students literally offers to suck your dick. 

Feeling the train slow again, he started to move toward the door and hoped in vain that this was nothing more than a chance encounter.

As flatly as possible, Julian mentioned that this was his stop.

 

“Oh really? No way, it’s my stop too!” Anya shot back. 

“Actually, I had a couple questions about this weekend’s assignment that I didn’t get a chance to ask in class. 

Do you mind if I walk with you for a bit to talk about it?” 

 

There was no question in Julian’s mind that Anya lived nowhere near his apartment, but in the moment, he could think of no reasonable way to remove himself from this increasingly dangerous situation. 

Or more probably, he wasn’t trying very hard to get out of it in the first place. 

He mumbled a non-committal syllable that Anya clearly took as a yes. 

 

They stepped off the train and onto the platform, and Julian began moving cautiously in the direction of his apartment. 

He lived only a few blocks from the station, so maybe if he could just humor her long enough to get home, he could make some excuse about a prior engagement and send her on her way? 

Julian’s thoughts were racing as he tried to come up with a believable lie, but he was distracted by Anya making a point disposing of her lollipop stick as they passed a trash can at the station. 

As she did, Julian briefly caught an expression on her face that seemed to say, _Now you have to keep your end of the bargain_. 

Julian swallowed hard as Anya’s face quickly reverted to a more neutral expression and she continued walking. 

 

Anya began prattling away about some function of the circulatory system while Julian only half-listened. 

His mind was desperately telling him to answer her questions quickly and immediately put her in a cab to the other end of the city, but his mouth remained obstinately still. 

Anya had moved on from her question about the homework and began chatting amiably about her weekend plans. 

Julian paid little attention until he heard something that he hoped beyond hope that he had misheard.

 

“What did you say?”

 

Anya looked up at him with a smile that reminded Julian far too much of the look a chess player might give his opponent after lining up his pieces for what would inevitably end in checkmate. 

“Oh, I was just saying that my friends and I were thinking of celebrating my birthday this weekend. I turned 18 last week.”

 

And with that, any resolve that Julian had left was utterly forgotten. 

At this point, they had made it to his apartment. 

He walked silently to his door, unlocked it, and motioned for Anya to come in. 

He firmly closed the door behind them before he turned and looked at her with an intensity he rarely let others see.

 

“Let’s cut the bullshit.” Julian said. “Why are you really here?”

 

Anya looked vaguely startled by his change in demeanor, but nevertheless began to move out of the entranceway into the apartment’s small, sparsely decorated living room. 

 

“Do you really need me to spell it out for you?” she asked, her voice losing its jovial cadence and settling into something more mature. 

Julian followed her into the living room and scowled at her as she set down her backpack on a chair.

 

“Of course not. 

That was a rhetorical question that we obviously both know the answer to. 

I’m just tired of listening to your painfully transparent excuses.” 

Anya looked thoughtful for a moment.

 

“Look, I know we both want this. 

And I made it so easy for you. 

No part of this interaction has taken place on school property, and now I’m not a minor.” 

Anya’s voice was surprisingly sincere. 

“If you tell me to go, I’ll leave right now and I won’t bother you again.” 

She paused, and Julian watched her intently as she slowly began to close the space between them, her voice dropping into that sultry range she had used with such effect on the train. 

“But I don’t think you will…I think you’re glad that you spotted me on the train today. 

I think you were hoping the whole time that I would come to your apartment and fuck you.”

 

And suddenly it was all too much. 

Anya was only inches away from him now, and Julian could no longer stand it. 

With a desperation that surprised even himself, he pulled her toward him and pressed his lips against hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready y'all, it's happening. Fair warning that this will be my first time writing smut, so we're gonna be on this wild ride together I guess. Title and lyrics from an excellent song by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.


	6. Little Alphabet Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m not a little kid now/Watch me get big now/Spell my name on the fridge now/With all your alphabet toys/You won the spelling bee now/But are you smarter than me now?/You’re the prince of the playground/Little alphabet boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back y'all! I know I promised smut this chapter but then I was writing and that just wasn't really what happened. Anyway, hope y'all like this one.

He was kissing her. 

It had happened so suddenly that Anya barely had time to appreciate it. 

He pulled away briefly, looking at her with an insatiable greed in his eyes that she thought must have been a reflection of her own. 

And then they were kissing again, his hand on the small of her back, crushing her body into his while he wound his other hand tentatively through her hair, tugging just enough that Anya couldn’t suppress a slight moan. 

She felt him pull her even closer at the sound, his movements becoming more frenzied.

 

She loved the way his tongue felt in her mouth, the way his chest felt under her hands. 

As she began to unfasten Mr. Devorak’s tie, Anya nudged him slightly so that his back was up against the nearest wall and pressed her body fully into his. 

Apparently not one to be outdone, Mr. Devorak immediately twisted Anya around so it was her back against the wall and his long, slender hands pressed flat on either side of her face. 

His tie unknotted and the top buttons of his shirt undone, peering down at her through mussed curls, Mr. Devorak looked every bit as appealing as she had ever dared imagine. 

 

In such close quarters, she had to tilt her head up significantly to look at his face, which was painted with such an array of expressions that Anya felt like she was watching him prepare for a theater performance. 

First desire, now guilt, now anger, now concern, now back to lust – Anya realized that she hadn’t won quite yet.

 

“Mr. Devorak…” she murmured, “I’m not a child anymore. 

And I want this. 

I’m an adult –”

 

“No, you’re not,” he interrupted, his voice soft but assertive. 

“Just because you’re not a child doesn’t mean you’re an adult. 

I’m – I should have seen that sooner. 

We just – I can’t –” 

He straightened up as he spoke haltingly, not bothering to finish his last sentence as he started backing away. 

Anya panicked for a moment, realizing that she wasn’t afraid so much of losing her opportunity to live out her fantasies than of Mr. Devorak never speaking to her again. 

 

“Please, Mr. Devorak, wait.” 

She was moving towards him again, but he had turned his back to her and was walking towards the door. 

“Mr. Devorak, please…” 

She was getting more desperate as Mr. Devorak continued to ignore her, until finally, without thinking, Anya grabbed his wrist. 

“Listen to me!” 

She had hoped the words would come out as an authoritative command, but instead they just sounded like a desperate plea. 

They worked, though.

 

Mr. Devorak turned to face Anya as she clutched his wrist, afraid to let go lest he slip away completely. 

 

“Please just let me say one thing,” she finally said, trying to make her voice as even as possible. 

When Mr. Devorak nodded slightly, she continued. 

“I don’t have a thing for you because you’re my teacher.” 

At this, he cocked an eyebrow, but Anya didn’t let him interrupt. 

“Okay, I won’t say it isn’t a factor, but honestly, I just…really like you. 

I like talking about my science experiments with you and hearing about the research you used to do. 

I like your sense of humor and the way you dress too formally for a schoolteacher. 

And I think that maybe…that could be the way you feel about me too. 

I don’t think you kissed me just now because I’m your student and you get, like, some kind of power trip from it or whatever.” 

(A grimace, her eloquence has clearly abandoned her.) 

“I think you kissed me because some part of you thinks of me as a person and not a student.”

 

Mr. Devorak stared intently at Anya for what was surely only a few seconds while she did her best to meet his gaze, widening her eyes into her best “I’m being earnest” expression. 

Finally, Mr. Devorak put a hand to his forehead and sighed.

 

“Jesus, Anya. What the fuck are we doing?” he said, more to himself than to Anya. 

He walked back to the living room, gently extricating his wrist from Anya’s grip as he fell back heavily onto the couch. 

She stood frozen in place, suddenly feeling very aware of her physical presence in her teacher’s private space and not sure where to go. 

 

“Anya…” he started, but then paused for some time, looking contemplative with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. 

Finally, “You’re incredible. 

You’re bright, you’re fun, you’re charming…more charming than you think you are, really.” 

 

Anya blushed slightly at this and decided to join Mr. Devorak on the couch – not too close, but she figured it would be better than standing in the entranceway like some kind of sexually-charged doorman. 

When she sat, Mr. Devorak gave her a friendly but slightly pained smile.

 

“You are all those things. 

Truly. 

But I…I am a mess. 

I know from experience that I am a destructive force in the lives of everyone I get close to, and you deserve so much more than that. 

You deserve something that I can’t give you.” 

Mr. Devorak spoke quietly. 

“I’d ruin you.”

 

Anya had been sympathetic until those last words. 

She had been considering how she would counter his argument and make Mr. Devorak see that he was being too hard on himself. 

But when the word “ruin” came out of his mouth, Anya felt like she had swallowed it like a piece of rotten meat, and it immediately turned her stomach sour. 

She blinked a few times in silence, trying to figure out what she actually felt about Mr. Devorak’s assertion. 

 

For reasons she couldn’t quite understand, it made her uncharacteristically angry. 

Anya pursed her lips, still considering. 

Moments had passed, and Mr. Devorak had not moved to look at her. 

He was still hunched over, his hands covering his face and his hair covering his hands. 

Finally, Anya was able to place her sense of displeasure – Mr. Devorak was talking about her as if she were some sort of commodity, an object, no agency whatsoever.

And with this realization her anger rose.

 

“You’d ‘ruin me.’ 

I see.” 

Anya stood up and picked up her school bag, doing her best not to let her voice shake. 

“I’m surprised you don’t think I’m already ruined.” 

At this, Mr. Devorak looked up, and Anya could see that she had upset him. 

A small part of her felt bad seeing the pain on his face, but it was out-maneuvered by a larger, angrier part of her that wanted to get rid of that awful, twisted feeling in her stomach by whatever means necessary. 

“But if you’re _so convinced_ that you’ll irrevocably screw up my whole life, then I’ll leave.”

 

“Anya, you know that isn’t what I meant,” Mr. Devorak began, getting up from his defensive position on the couch and following Anya to the door.

 

But Anya wasn’t having it. 

She had stumbled through so many emotions in such a short period of time, and she needed a break. 

She opened the door to leave, but paused briefly to look back at Mr. Devorak, unintentionally revealing her expression of rueful contemplation. 

 

“Isn’t it?” she asked quietly, before stepping out of the apartment and pulling the door shut behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title and lyrics from the Melanie Martinez song.


	7. Fluorescent Adolescent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The best you ever had is just a memory/And those dreams/As daft as they seem/Not as daft as they seemed/When you dreamed them up

“Lucio, I really fucked up,” Anya lamented over their video call. 

Despite a long cry and a hot shower, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the debacle at Mr. Devorak’s apartment since she had gotten home. 

It was later that same evening, and Anya was curled up against no fewer than four pillows and trying to feel as cozy as possible on a warm summer evening. 

She hoped that talking about the situation with Lucio would help. 

“I know your advice was to go for it, but I don’t know if I’m the kind of girl who can really pull off the whole ‘shamelessly seduce your teacher’ thing.”

 

“Damn, yeah, you did fuck that up.” 

Anya responded to this with a suitably pouty face. 

“But listen, he clearly wants to jump your bones. 

You just have to convince him that it’s okay that he wants to jump your bones.” 

Lucio grinned broadly, clearly pleased with himself.

 

“Ugh, no. 

Nope. 

No, no, no. 

Definitely not. 

I have embarrassed myself beyond all hope of redemption. 

I’ve only got like a month left – I’ll just wait it out and pretend he never existed!” 

 

“And give up that fine ass? 

Anya, you’ve showed me a picture of him, and he is a SNACC. 

And yes, that was ‘snacc’ with two c’s,” Lucio continued. 

“Just follow my three-step plan: 

1) Be the most good-looking person in the room. 

2) Know that you’re the most good-looking person in the room. 

3) Do whatever the fuck you want because you’re the most good-looking person in the room. 

Never fails!”

 

Anya gave Lucio a disparaging look and started to respond, but he interrupted. 

“And don’t even give me that ‘Oh, I’m not pretty’ bullshit, we both know you’re gorgeous. 

Anyway, I’ve gotta go. 

This new girl I’ve been talking to just texted me ‘you up’ so ya boy ‘bout to get some. 

Seriously though, here’s my advice: Pull out all the stops, get serious, and make this guy realize he has to have you, whether he thinks it’s morally acceptable or not.

Go get him!” 

With that, Lucio ended the call, leaving Anya feeling slightly bemused but no less certain about her plan of action than before consulting her friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back y'all! There's another chapter coming up right after this one, since I know this is short. I didn't think there was a good way to integrate this into the next chapter, so here it is! Also, writing Lucio was so fun omg y'all.
> 
> Title and lyrics from the song by The Arctic Monkeys.


	8. Starring Role

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I ignore you so I feel in control/But really I adore you, and I can’t leave you alone

The next week was every bit as bad as Anya had feared it would be. 

Mr. Devorak had gone from cordial detachment to complete avoidance. 

He hadn’t said one word to her since she had more or less stormed out of his apartment, and she had no idea whether that would ever change. 

By Wednesday, she had decided the best course of action would be to throw herself into studying for her finals. 

She felt confident about the material, but she needed a distraction. 

 

So that Friday she found herself in the library. 

She was accustomed to spending her free time there, tucked into her favorite carrel in the back corner. 

Anya stayed late so often that the librarian had taken to locking her in when he left, knowing Anya would be able to open the locked door from the inside and trusting her not to do anything illicit while she was there. 

She had never betrayed that trust.

 

The librarian had left already, and Anya was making a valiant effort to care about the finer points of macroeconomics. 

It was when she had given up on trying to understand the consumer price index that she noticed footsteps in one of the nearby stacks.

 

Wondering if the librarian had returned and desperately thankful for the distraction, Anya got up and walked towards the noise. 

As she turned the corner around the PA shelf (Greek and Latin literature – her favorite section), she ran headlong into Mr. Devorak. 

He was so tall that her nose collided directly with his sternum, causing Anya to let out an involuntary yelp of pain. 

 

Without registering who she had just run into, Anya began to apologize, but her words quickly deserted her when her brain caught up with her eyes. 

 

“Ah, Mr. Devorak…” she breathed, “Excuse me.” 

Anya made to turn to the door of the library, perfectly happy to leave all her things behind if it meant she could get out of this situation faster. 

To her surprise and dismay, however, Mr. Devorak replied.

 

“Please don’t apologize, Anya, it was I who was not watching where I was going.” 

Mr. Devorak was looking as put-together as ever, his crisp white shirt, red tie, and black suit far too formal for a school teacher and yet suiting him perfectly. 

“What brings you to the library at this late hour?”

 

Anya couldn’t tell if he was faking joviality or if he actually wanted to engage her in a friendly conversation. 

Wary of making a fool of herself, Anya answered tersely. 

“Just a quiet place to study for finals.” 

Before thinking about it, her manners got the better of her, and she cringed internally as she politely responded, “You?”

 

“I’m looking for an old medical history book. 

I found my mind wandering while I was grading, and I wondered if our library had a copy of it.” 

Mr. Devorak took on a dreamy look, and Anya guessed that the book must hold some sentimental value, though she could not imagine what. 

 

“You’re in the wrong section. 

Medical history is R. 

We’re in PA, which is classical literature.” 

Mr. Devorak looked at Anya curiously.

 

“So that’s why you spend so much time in here? 

You’re memorizing the call numbers?”

 

Anya inexplicably felt herself blush slightly.

 

“Not really, I just get books out of those sections the most, so I remember them.” 

Mr. Devorak continued regarding her with interest, and Anya suddenly became very aware of their absolute solitude in the dark library. 

Anya didn’t have anything left to say, nor did she know what the graceful way to extricate herself from this conversation would be, so she was relieved when Mr. Devorak spoke again.

 

“If you like, you could look for the book with me.”

 

Anya had not expected that. 

All week, he barely so much as looked at her, and now he was voluntarily prolonging their chance encounter? 

But she knew she wouldn’t say no. 

Her failed seduction of Mr. Devorak notwithstanding, she missed their conversations during the school day. 

All her friends her age were students at other schools, so talking with Mr. Devorak was usually her most fulfilling social encounter of the day.

 

“Okay, but you have to explain what’s so special about it,” Anya finally replied, walking toward the R shelf and looking back at Mr. Devorak expectantly. 

Anya quickly found her way to the right shelf, realizing how far to the back of the library it was as Mr. Devorak began to answer her question.

 

“Well, it reminds me of when I was in grad school. 

And it’s about my favorite subject, the history of bloodletting – particularly the use of leeches.”

 

Anya knew that Mr. Devorak was interested in medical history – they had bonded over it when they first met. 

But she was more interested in medicine of the classical Greek and Roman periods, and she sometimes found it odd that Mr. Devorak was so enthusiastic about the strange medicinal practices of the Middle Ages. 

Anya tended to think it was a symptom of the morbid streak she was fairly convinced they shared. 

 

Lost in thought, Anya realized it had been some time since either of them had spoken.

 

“That sounds interesting,” she piped up, somewhat haplessly. 

“Do you know the full call number? 

It’ll take forever to find if you don’t.”

 

Mr. Devorak recited the call number from memory, and Anya set about looking for the place on the shelf that it should be. 

She realized as she was skimming the shelves that the motion-activated lights that usually come on when someone enters the aisle between the stacks had failed to light up, making it difficult to read the spines of the books. 

Despite the darkness, Anya was closing in on the spot she expected the book to be, and she had become so entranced with the process of searching through the books that she hadn’t noticed Mr. Devorak following her quietly as she made her way down the aisle. 

 

At last, she saw the book she was looking for, on a shelf above her head. 

It was a stretch, but if she stood on her toes, she could just reach – 

 

Suddenly she felt a warm pressure at her back, and Mr. Devorak’s long arm took hold of the book with ease. 

Anya turned to face Mr. Devorak, who was now barely an inch away from her. 

He handed her the book but made no movement to unpin Anya from the stacks. 

Anya could make neither heads nor tails of this development, but she took the book from Mr. Devorak, as that seemed to be her only available option. 

The cover was the generic, blank cover typical of library books, so Anya opened it to the title page.

 

“’Leeches: A History in Medicine,’” Anya read, “by Nazali Satrinava and Julian Devorak.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay y'all don't @ me, I don't know how fancy private school libraries work, for all I know they could have full height stacks and use the Library of Congress call numbers. Anyway, things are about to get ~spicy~ so get HYPED.
> 
> Title and lyrics for this chapter from the song by Marina and the Diamonds.


	9. Young Adult Friction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between the stacks in the library/not like anyone stopped to see/we came, they went, our bodies spent/among the dust and the microfiche...Never thought I would come of age/let alone on a moldy page/You put your back to the spines and you said it was fine/If there’s nothing really left to say

Anya looked at Mr. Devorak in surprise, briefly forgetting about his unbearable proximity. 

“Didn’t you say that you never finished grad school?”

 

Mr. Devorak flashed Anya a wistful smile. 

“I didn’t. 

But my advisor insisted that my work be published. 

They helped me finish my research and added their name as co-author so the publisher would accept it. 

The librarian mentioned the other day that the school had a copy of it, and I was curious to see for myself.”

 

He stood with his arm still resting on the shelf from which the book had come, looming over Anya in a manner not entirely objectionable. 

Anya couldn’t help but replay the images that had been burned in her mind from the previous weekend, and she could feel her cheeks starting to flush. 

When she emerged again from her imagination, Mr. Devorak was looking at her with an intense expression of what could only be described as rueful longing. 

Anya could feel the heat from her cheeks spreading downwards as she imagined what Mr. Devorak might be planning to do to her. 

 

Unsure of what to say or do as her teacher stared at her unrelentingly, Anya finally managed, “Well, we found it.” 

 

“Indeed, we have,” Mr. Devorak answered languidly, his sultry tone not fitting his banal words. 

“I must confess, however, that this book was not my primary reason for visiting the library this afternoon. 

In fact, I was hoping I might run in to you.” 

 

Anya could not fathom what might have brought about this change in her teacher since the previous weekend. 

He had gone from guilty and self-deprecating to overtly lustful with seemingly no explanation. 

Anya wondered if she had fallen asleep while studying and was in fact dreaming this whole encounter, but the heat she could feel emanating from Mr. Devorak’s body, so close to hers, precluded that possibility. 

Mr. Devorak’s clear advances, however, were serving to at least alleviate some of the embarrassment Anya felt about the previous weekend, and she made no attempt to duck out from under her teacher’s presence.

 

Seeming to sense Anya’s tentative acceptance of the situation, Mr. Devorak continued: “You see, I was sitting in my classroom and thinking about those nasty rumors that have been circulating about you. 

And I thought to myself, ‘You know, Anya gives and gives, and what does she get in return? 

A few mumbled words of thanks and a goofy smile from some high school boys?’ 

I wasn’t lying when I said you deserved more than what I can give you. 

But I figured I can at least offer you something a little better than _that_.” 

 

Mr. Devorak had leaned down slightly and had spoken those last words almost directly into Anya’s ear, using a husky voice she had never heard from him before, but which had the capability of destroying any defenses Anya might have put up. 

She briefly wondered how many other women Mr. Devorak might have used that tone of voice on, and to what end, before shaking the thought away. 

Anya didn’t much care who else he had seduced in the past, as long as he was seducing her now. 

 

Her mind made up now to play along, Anya responded, “And what exactly might you be offering?” 

As she spoke, she placed the book back on a shelf, removing it as an obstacle between Mr. Devorak’s body and hers. 

 

“What I can offer you,” Mr. Devorak began, placing one hand on the side of her thigh and beginning to slide it up, painfully slowly, under her skirt, “is something a little more…adult.” 

 

Anya’s breath was coming heavily now, and she arched her back so that she could press more of herself against her teacher’s body. 

As she did so, Mr. Devorak’s long fingers finally reached her hips, and she felt his thumb softly brush over her underwear, searching lightly for her clit. 

She gave out a soft moan when he found it, and she could feel him smile, his lips pressed against her neck, nipping gently as his thumb traced slow circles around her clit. 

 

Then suddenly, in one swift motion that Anya felt must have been perfected over many attempts, Mr. Devorak unbuttoned and unzipped his pants before hoisting Anya up, her back pressed against the bookshelf and her legs wrapped around his hips. 

Anya could feel the heat between her legs now pressing up against the exposed length of her teacher’s swollen cock. 

Now seemingly set in his purpose, Anya watched Mr. Devorak impatiently push her underwear to the side and press his cock into her slick but tight vagina. 

 

Anya saw him briefly close his eyes as he let out a low grunt that made her already moist opening throb even more. 

In all the time she had spent sucking off boys behind the bleachers, she never thought that anything related to sex could possibly feel this _good_. 

Mr. Devorak had started thrusting rhythmically into her now, pushing himself deeper and deeper inside her with every thrust. 

Anya couldn’t suppress her moans as he drove into her, exalting at the feeling she had of his throbbing cock filling her up, pressing her open even further. 

Just when she thought she couldn’t take it any longer, that she would burst from pleasure, Anya felt Mr. Devorak speed up his rhythm, thrusting into her faster and faster until he buried his head in her neck, moaning softly as he finished inside her.

 

Mr. Devorak gently set Anya down, and Anya wasn’t entirely sure what to do with herself. 

This was usually the point at which she would leave the high school boys she had finished off to revel in their post-orgasmic bliss while she went about the rest of her day. 

But she wasn’t behind the bleachers now, and she wasn’t with just some high school boy. 

 

Anya figured at least that things were over, and she must have made some motion suggesting her departure because Mr. Devorak grabbed her waist and said with a low voice, “And where do you think you’re going? 

That was only part one.”

 

Saying this, he slid his hands down from Anya’s waist to her thighs and pushed up her skirt as he knelt down in front of her. 

Anya could feel his hot breath on her pelvis, and a sharp thrill ran through her when her teacher slid her thong down to her ankles and wryly looked up at her through his auburn curls. 

 

“Now you get yours,” Mr. Devorak whispered, and then Anya could feel the cold wetness of her teacher’s tongue against her clit. 

She gasped softly at the sensation, so unlike anything she had ever felt before. 

Mr. Devorak quickly settled into a rhythm of alternating quick flicks of the tip of his tongue and long passes with broad flat of tongue, and Anya let her head fall back against the books. 

Unconsciously, she laced her fingers through Mr. Devorak’s wavy hair. 

Realizing what she’d done and not sure how her teacher would react, she looked down at him, but he just smiled back at her mischievously and seemed to redouble his efforts. 

Anya could feel the pleasure building inside of her, and she could feel her muscles begin to tense. 

And then, all of a sudden, all the tension she had been holding released at once. 

Anya moaned as Mr. Devorak’s tongue flicked against her throbbing clit, keeping her orgasm going for as long as possible. 

Finally, when the waves of pleasure had subsided, Anya relaxed back against the bookshelf, her eyes closed and her breathing heavy. 

She felt her teacher stand up and lean in close to her ear. 

 

“Good luck studying,” he whispered, and then silently walked out of the library.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the crazy hiatus y'all! I haven't had a lot of motivation to write up until recently. But here it is, my first ever smut attempt, so be gentle lol. Also, title and lyrics from the song by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all this is very self indulgent and also my first time publishing a fic? Also yes, I did make Lucio MC's friend with more sexual experience because we all know he's the biggest ho out of all the characters. Anyway, hoping to get this finished up in a couple weeks, so be on the lookout for updates.


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